Edited by author 07-09-2002 10:08 AM
I've lost weight a few times, sometimes with and sometimes without intentionally modifying my diet. I try to think of my goal more as a change in body composition (muscle::fat ratio) than as a change in overall weight (which can be accomplished either by losing fat or muscle.)

The most effective thing I've found is weightlifting, combined with something more cardio-intense like basketball or running (I hate running, though.)

When I first started weightlifting in college, I dropped about 30 lbs in 6 months or so, without changing my diet, going from about 212 to 180. Since then, I generally cycle between about 200 and 190, depending on the season.

My initial weight loss was done without changing off the diet that caused me to gain 60 lbs in college (I was skinny when I arrived.) Now that I'm working though, I find I have to modify my diet slightly to lose weight, generally by breaking things into smaller meals and cutting back on carbs (I've tried cutting fat, it didn't help.)

The BIGGEST single thing people seem to not realize is that ANY diet where you try to lose more than 1-2 lbs a week is going to be unsustainable, be it Atkins, low-fat, Zone, etc. Constantly you hear these "I lose 15 lbs in 4 weeks but then I gained it back." The goal should be to permanently modify your diet to reduce calories to a breakeven point, then drop 10-15% below that number when you want to lose weight.

This is a lifetime/lifestyle choice, not a "diet" that you do to get change then bounce back to your old habits. You want it to be something you can sustain and be happy with forever. IMHO Atkins and low-fat both suck because nobody wants to spend the rest of your life eating that way, unless you have some ulterior reason to be crazed about your weight (like a body-builder.)

The high-protein, low-carb strategy is well known, and you'll find it in any mainstream fitness magazine (men's fitness/health, shape.) I first heard about it years ago from friends who were natural bodybuilders -- they didn't do Atkins, but they purposely cycled their carb intake on a 4-day schedule so that about twice a week they knew they were burning body fat off to make up for carb deficits. Ketosis is HARD to achieve and unless you want 2% body fat, it's simply not necessary.

BTW, the really nice benefit of reducing high-GI carbs, even if you're not trying to lose weight, is that you feel a lot more energetic. No more of the dreaded post-lunch "food coma" as you crash off the sugar high. I used to have terrible problems with falling asleep in class or meetings during the mid-afternoon, and I find that going to 3 meals, 2 snacks and reducing high-GI carbs from lunch prevents this phenomenon.

It's mostly like your mom told you. Eat your veggies, and don't pig out on desser. Vegetables (especially dark green ones and ones that aren't sweet or doughy like eggplant) help fill you up and add very little to your calorie intake, replacing the bread/pasta/rice we normally fill up on. Eat a reasonable amount of meat. If you're hungry, have a small handful of nuts -- the fat makes you feel sated quickly. Don't let yourself go hungry -- it only makes you likely to fall out of good eating habits. Just moderate your meal: when I make my occasional trip to BK or Popeyes, I cut the fries and get the regular size meal. No big deal.

I have always done a fair amount of exersize, but found it hard to lose that last bit of fat. Cutting down on bread and increasing protein is working for me.

I have reduced my body fat from 19% to 15% using the Zone diet. When I am disciplined enough to stick to the diet I lose about 1-2lb a week. Although thats flattening out as my body fat reduces.

The Zone diet is not 'no carb'. It stressed eating 10g of (low glycemic) carbs for every 7g of protein.

Following the zone diet is a bit of a struggle if you are vegetarian, as I am. I have to have a lot of tofu, quorn and milk.

However I am skeptical about some of the Zone diet claims about preventing disease.

If you really want to lose weight fast, then go high altitude trekking in Nepal. I lost >7lbs in 2 weeks and the six pack was starting to appear!

Ps/ What do you feed cattle if you want to fatten them up - grain, not fat.

Processed grains make you fat. Rices, breads, pastas, alcohol. Substitute vegetables and you'll lose weight.

Jim Dyer, if you checked out the links why did you not put up a reaction to the pus content (400 000 000 cells per liter, YUM YUM YUM) of Monsanto-nized milk? or is that Monsanotized, or Agent-Oranged milk?

>>Inuits have short lifespans.
The health of the Inuit
is getting worse. When Amundsen did his research he wrote he never saw evidence of diabetes or widespread heart conditions.
A few years ago i saw a poster in the Toronto subway exhorting Indians to get checked up because Anish Nabe (including the Inuit) have a much higher-than-normal per-capita instance of diabetes and heart trouble.
The paleo thing is a bit strange, with some colorful types in the community.

Some research now over 20 years old suggested that hunter/gatherers spent 60% of their time gathering and 40% hunting. It was just assumed gathering = vegetables, hunting=animals.

Current thought is that gathering = (40% vegetables 60% high protein foods)
(fishing was classified as gathering(!!!!) in the old research, as was 'found (scavenged, not hunted) meat' and all (calories collected)/ (time spent) on these was classified as yielding plant foods!!!) - as well as the rodents, insects, small birds, all classified as plants.

The current paleo diets are built along these lines.[1]

  I don't quite understand about the carbs. We (Zed and I) seem to agree that starches (potato, pasta, bread type stuff) are as bad as table sugar, and much more similar (this was my point) to each other than the 'complex carb' people let on.

leafy-Vegetable-based carbs are much preferred, fruit is a little worse for glycemic index than vegetables, but nowhere near as bad as starches/sugars. Do we have a disagreement here?

PS paleo actually differentiates between fruits - pineapple and tomatoes entered the human diet only within the last 500?years (? corrections requested ? the south American Indians have been eating tomato thousands of years, but most of humanity was exposed to it very recently), so tomatoes and pineapple are verbotten, while apples and mangoes are OK (unless you want to lose weight, then avoid all fruit until the weight's off).

[1] There have also been raging debates over how fat wild animals are, with some researchers suggesting a high protein, low fat diet because rabbit/deer/zebra/gazelles etc... have 10% bodyfat. The current paleodieters generally agree (with many dissenting ) that high fat is better. There were lots of animals in paleo times with high bodyfat that are extinct today, and paleo people eat the entire animal[2] (brains, yum, lots of cholesterol and monounsaturates)

[2] Don't forget to eat everything RAW, that's PALEO!!!. Although bags made of various materials have been found in circumstances that would lead you to believe paleo eaters were cooking meat up to 100 deg C, 100 000 years ago.

=v= /m31 Inuits have short lifespans. Some of this is no doubt due to the harsh ecosystem they live in, and no doubt their diet makes sense for that ecosystem, but I see no basis for the idea that it could be generalized to other ecosystems. Especially since those ecosystems are where most humans have lived for most of human existence, and have evolved and thrived on a diet predominantly comprising plant foods.

I checked out the "paleodiet" links, and while they lead to a mixed bag of links, it seems to me that it hinges on a notion of hunter/gatherer societies that is now discredited: these should more accurately called gatherer/hunter societies to reflect the predominance of plant foods in their diets.

Carbs are not more alike than people think; the article that started this discussion blurs the distinction, but your "paleodiet" links actually get that one right to some extent.

=v= /m26 Not all thin French people smoke. There are other variables at play there, and I suspect that purer oils and fats, small portions, and long meals are involved.

    <_Jym_>

I consider diet soda worth avoiding in the general case. I'd still advise eating whole fruit as part of a complete meal... lots of good stuff in fruit. It's not shocking that potato starch alone is absorbed faster than table sugar; that's why I emphasized eating it with the skin (at which point it's still comparable to sugar.)

Admittedly, you're likely to keep your meals' overall GI lower by avoiding fruits and potatoes altogether, so to lose most weight fastest it would be effective. But as part of complete meals including protein and fat, i.e. lower GI foods, I'd still consider them generally fine.

Yes, carbs are the one macronutrient we can survive without. Does that make going without them altogether optimal? Maybe for Inuits (and maybe not), but I'd doubt it for most of the rest of us -- there's a hell of a lot we still don't know.

I'll have to read up on ketosis. I have the usual knee-jerk reaction against it, and perhaps that's unwarranted.

Edited by author 07-08-2002 04:09 PM
I hope somebody is still reading this. Actually this has helped me clarify some things for myself.
The only thing about the article that disappoints me is, he did not follow up on the archaeological stuff. Here's a few links if you're interested.

http://www.sofdesign.com/neanderthin/index.html
http://www.panix.com/~paleodiet/
http://www.notmilk.com/

Another thing I think he did not explore was how easily people confuse 'makes sense' or 'sounds good' with 'good science'.

"eat fat, get fat" is good sloganeering, but the research to back up such a claim is weak at best. From some of the comments below I also think there is a bunch of 'taking it personally' going on.

I'm just amazed at the comments that some people have made in this forum, it's almost like they never read the article.

1. Atkins type diets are not sustainable
  The other diet is harder to sustain. Ask any Pritikin, McDougall, FitForLife or Ornish graduate.

2. high protein, low fat is just as good.
  This may be one area where we can learn from the Inuit, who have a culture of high protein/high fat going back before recorded history. They say that when the only meat you can get is lean you're in trouble. Also Dr. Mauro DiPasquale, who was pushing an atkins-derived diet (maybe still is) said the same thing. I forget his references, but one of his main points was, always keep your fat intake up, even at the expense of protein.

3. For those of you who are saying 'Zone is different from Atkins'. For the purposes of that article, Zone and Atkins are IDENTICAL. Both diets tell you 'do not be afraid of dietary fat, it will not hurt you'. Again, (with feeling,) FOR THE PURPOSES OF THAT ARTICLE Zone and Atkins are IDENTICAL.

4. Zed Lopez, I appreciated your carbs discussion, although personally when I want to lose I avoid all sweets (including fruits and diet sodas). Part of the article's point was that carbs are more alike than most people think. That's what the glycemic index discussion was about. Glycemic index was one of my own eye-openers. For years the diet books said 'eat complex carbs, they're absorbed more slowly than simple sugars. Then one day I found out potahto (not potayto) starch is absorbed faster than sucrose. The worm really turned for me that day.

5. French and Japanese - much less sugar. Also most French sweets are fatty, which slows down sugar absorption (fatty ice cream has a glycemic index of ~25, sorbets hover at 60

6. item 5. is quite funny, complex carbs do not slow down sugar absorption, but THE ULTIMATE EVIL, FAT, does. Oh, the irony.

7. Johnny P, have you ever heard of free radicals? Are you aware that saturated fats are practically immune to free radical damage[1], and to becoming chain-reactors in free radical reactions? Unsaturates are very prone to this kind of thing (that's why your health food store keeps the flax seed oil in a fridge). Unsaturated fats are not all they're cracked up to be.
 
8. Denise@centers, Please do an internet search for 'ketogenic diet' and epilipsy.
These are people who stay on a 90% fat diet for up to 5 years, some more than this. They drink less water than they should in an attempt to RAISE KETONES (ketones get flushed out in urine, but for epileptics the ketones are the medicine, so they try to keep ketones as high as possible). Because their doctors are 'uneasy' keeping them on this diet, they always stop. At the end of the diet they have no heart trouble, little obesity, no osteoporosis, and most of them turn out at the end quite lean. NONE, and I mean NONE, zilch, zippo of the scare-mongering heart disease, osteoporosis, brain damage, stroke myths show up in these people. Why? Because KETOSIS IS NOT BAD FOR YOU. It's your natural state.

But aside from the epileptics, re-read the article where a world authority on ketones says the brain and heart work 25% more efficiently on ketones than on sugar. Atkins has always maintained (and the science backs him up 110%,) that ketosis IS NOT acidosis.

9. Tobias Bucknell, keeping carbs as low as possible is not an over-reaction, it is NECESSARY to get into ketosis. Insulin is one POWERFUL hormone, the smallest amounts have far-reaching consequences for _EVERY_ tissue in your body. Ask any med student, biochemist or diabetic.

10 Binary ape, regarding bone loss, PLEASE do that search for 'epilipsy ketogenic diet'. KIDS go on that diet, stay on it for 5 years, and at the end of the 5 years they've put on a ton of bone. According to you that's impossible. According to the doctors, kids and parents it's happening all the time.
Also PLEASE explain how a baby Inuit can grow to adulthood while always on balance losing more calcium than he consumes his whole life? THAT's IMPOSSIBLE.

PS There's no proof at all that carbs are necessary. In fact, the Inuit are proof that one could live one's whole life without ever eating any carbs, but it is known medical fact that one cannot live on zero fats (several vitamins and EFAs can only come into your body thru fat, dontcherknow).

PPS Wanna know what REALLY causes osteoporosis?
http://www.4.waisays.com/

11 Stefan Jones, did you not read where the article talks about 'ketosis may be the natural state for man?' The archaeologists back up that viewpoint, follow the paleodiet links and see....

 A little thought to leave you on, one time I was discussing this very topic with a friend, and the argument ended when I said this - glucose does tons of damage to your body, all the stuff that happens to most diabetics is because their glucose sometimes goes too high. In fact, glucose is such a poison that whenever you eat it, your body mobilizes one of the most powerful hormones at its disposal, Insulin, to get that stuff out of your blood as soon as possible. But what happens when you eat fat? Evolution has built your body's control processes to think[2] that fat is such a horrendous poison that, what, what does it do?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. (in the absence of sugar) It does nothing special to get fat out of your blood, until the fat has really piled up.

[2]The actions of your body may be described as saying 'your body thinks', but yes, I know that's not accurate.

As for those Omega fat thingies. Last night I split a peppered, smoked mackeral (about $4.00) with a friend as an appetizer. I took the skin and grilled it; the stankiest, greasiest stuff imaginable, like frying bacon in duck fat. I got a vitamin G injection that will keep my knees from creaking for a week and it was GOOD for me to boot.

The Japanese diet is just a lot better, lots of meals, small quantities, less refined foods, lots of oily seafood. Even the heaviest French food is no match pound for pound for American fast food for it's ill effects, and they walk a LOT more than us.

I don't know that a fast food class-action lawsuit is that outrageous. Everyone knew smoking was bad for them too...

wait a minute chaps, where are my usual 'conspiracy round every corner' boingy folk?
have you any comprehension of how much money the international sugar trade turns over?
have you any idea how vicious it turns when anyone suggests that refined sugar is not the 'natural food' it would like you all to think?
refined sugar will be the new tobacco in a few year's time (and your tall skinny frappolattochocachino will be just another delivery mechanism)

cypher - if smoking like a fiend was all it took, i'd be "tobacco chic".

I moved to tokyo back in November. since then i've lost over 20 pounds. i used to live in chicago - ate polish food, italian food, lots of burritos from the mexican places down the street. bologna. hot dogs. cheese.

but now i eat traditional japanese diet -- rice, vegetables, tofu, miso soup, fish. and i eat as much as i want. and i just get skinnier and skinnier. no more soda, but green tea, and cold barley tea. and lots of walking in japan. but really its the diet. change your diet and you will be healthy i think.

The French smoke like crazy. They won't give up their cigarettes because they're afraid of getting fat.

Get back on it Dave! If you can limit yourself to one non-Zone meal a day you'll be way ahead of the game.

ChakaTodd is right. The Zone is not a high-protein diet like the Atkins diet.

When I went on the Zone diet, I started losing about a pound a week--nothing dramatic but steady--and eventually lost a total of fifty pounds. And as a bonus, I felt more energetic and didn't get sleepy after lunch anymore.

I kept the weight off for several years but lately I've gotten careless with the carbs and have gained about 25 pounds of it back.

TO: Paul Hoffman

Putting Atkins and Zone in the same category means you don't know much about one of them. It looks like you don't understand the Zone. It is not a high protein diet. It's not a high anything diet. The Zone teaches you how to eat balanced meals, and to try to avoid the bad versions, of fats, carbs, and proteins. -Todd

I have the opposite problem. I have never been able to put on weight no matter how much I excercise or eat. I am underweight for my height and wish that I could gain weight. I have been the same weight since I was 20 +- 1kg. (75kg 6"2)

I used to weigh about 40 pounds more than I do now. Lost 60 pounds 5 years ago, gained about 10 back in the year after that, and my weight has remained very steady ever since.

1. Most people have no idea about the nutritional content of their diet. I have friends who are grossly obese who whine that it is their genetic makeup that makes them fat -- of course they have no idea they are consuming 4,000 to 5,000 calories a day. Very few people seem to be able to accurately assess just how many calories their eating on a daily basis (I've seen research that confirms this, where people tend to wildly underestimate both how many calories they are eating and how many they can eat to maintain their weight).

2. Fat people don't exercise consistently. I certainly didn't before I lost my weight. Now I'm not hypersensitive about missing exercise, but I make sure I do some form of exercise at least 3 times a week, even if it's just strapping on the rollerblades or playing some one-one-one basketball.

3. They obsess about stupid things like fat or carbohydrates. The Atkins diet is just as silly as the ultra-low fat diets as far as I'm concerned. Everyone I know on the Atkins diet is on it because a) they want to lose weight but b) they don't want to reduce their calorie intake. Atkins works great for awhile, but everyone I know personally who has ever gone on the diet gives up after the initial weight loss and gains back all of the weight since they haven't changed their calorie intake or workout habits.

4. You have to lift weights. Again you don't have to go all Arnold Schwarzenegger, but even a basic weight lifting routine with some small dumbells in the bedroom will make a world of difference in getting the weight off and (more importantly) keeping it off. Plus you'll decrease your likelihood of being a 98 pound weakling as you grow older.

Moderation in diet+exercise will take most people quite far.

If you stop eating like a starved dog you too can be at a weight appropriate to your skeletal size!!!Why do people not get the concept?Eat less,exercise more...why is the american public so hungry and so lazy?We all should take a huge leap into reality,come-on...if you eat like a pig you will certainly look like one!!and there are way too many.The parents who's kids look like little fat versions of themselves should be held liable for the poor kids health.If my offspring look like a overstuffed pillow i would be embarassed and ashamed and wouldnt let him outside to be mocked by people with some self control.Its time the american people take responsibilty for the way they look,enough b.s.

Edited by author 07-07-2002 06:47 PM
I'm certified as a group exercise intstructor and a personal trainer, and I used to weigh half again what I do now. This is a matter in which I have some strong opinions.

Reading that article, I was actually surprised to see the low-fat thing advertised as mainstream belief. Not in the fitness field. I also repeatedly wanted to jump up and down screaming: "All fats are not created equal! All carbs are not created equal!" (Neither are all proteins, but the article never implied anything that made me want to shout that.) Also: "All people are not created equal!" Some people are going to thrive on different diets than other people. There is no one optimal diet for everyone despite what nearly every diet guru wants to tell you.

Cory, my oversimplification about what weight's about would have three things: 1) what you eat 2) how many calories you burn 3) your metabolism. Discussion of metabolic rates is one thing conspicously absent from the article. One of the causes of obesity is intermittent caloric-restriction dieting. When you eat less, your metabolism slows down 'cause your body thinks there's a famine going on and it needs to be more efficient. If you resume eating exactly like you used to, you're going to then gain weight — eating more doesn't speed up your metabolism.

Putting on muscle mass does speed up your metabolism. That's why I'd recommend that any efforts toward a leaner body-composition (which is how I'd recommend thinking about rather than losing weight) include resistance training, i.e. lifting weights.

I'm with Bjorn. Refined sugar is evil. And sucrose has a glycemic index of 65. Flour has a GI of 70, whole wheat flour 69 -- they'll spike your blood sugar even faster than sugar, causing the insulin reaction described in the article. (The grains are physically smaller and the greater surface area:volume ratio makes for faster reactivity.)

That was my chief frustration with the article: it kept saying "low-fat diets caused the obesity epidemic" instead of "high glycemic-index diets caused it". The low fat alone wouldn't have been so bad without what we replaced it with.

Carbs are where you want to be getting most of the calories you burn for energy from. If you're eating so much protein and so little carbs you burn protein for energy, you'll be straining your kidneys: protein doesn't burn cleanly.
Now you can do this just fine with whole grains, potatoes with skins, whole fruit, veggies, and I'd recommend it. You can cut refined starches and sugars without cutting carbs. (The big difference: the whole items have other stuff, including fiber, which lowers their glycemic index, as well as lots of healthful good for you stuff you don't want to miss out on.) And be sure that all your meals balance fat, protein and carbs to further lower the average GI of the meal (which is what matters.)

I'm not sure about the French and Japanese, Pat, but I'd guess: less sugar, less dieting, more physical activity.

Oh, and I'm mostly vegan (I eat eggs.) All of these high protein diets diss vegetarianism let alone veganism 'cause its protein:carb ratio is automatically too low. Now, I fully expect that veganism and vegetarianism may not be the optimal diet for some people, but it would take a whole lot of convincing to make me think it's implicitly a bad thing.

The whole article seemed to be encouraging an anti-carb backlash as big and stupid as the anti-fat bandwagon was to begin with. Sigh.

Oh, one last thing to tie up: when I said all fats are not created equal, I want to point out that almost no one eating the standard American diet is getting anywhere near enough Omega 3 fatty acids, and any amount of trans-fatty acids (to be found in nearly all margarine, and nearly all junk food and packaged food as hydrogenated or partically hydrogenated vegetable oils, and in the fryolator of any fast food joint, even if they started out with pure vegetable oil — the heat converts it) is too much.

So please don't give up vegetables altogether and start chowing down on fried chicken and think you're doing your health a favor.

I've dropped most sugar-heavy and carb-heavy foods from my diet and started working out with a vengance. I eat a lot of vegetables and still eat red meat and chicken and oatmeal or Grape Nuts for breakfast with some fruit. I have no idea what kind of poundage I've lost - nor do I really care about pounds, but I've dropped about four inches off of my gut since May.

Avoid soda even if you're not trying to lose weight, I've seen several studies that suggest that carbonated drinks contribute to osteoporosis.

I want somebody to explain the French to me. They eat everything, including sweets or heavy cheese for dessert. They eat plenty of butter, meat and bread. This is not just French resteraunts but the French in their homes. Walking around in Paris one sees almost no really heavy people and damned few chunky people.

From the reports of my friends, there are precious few gyms, and while some people run and/or walk to stay healthy, many people don't.

This holds even truer for the Japanese. Although I did notice many more chunky children than adults. But the kids were bigger than their parents too. More milk is how they explain it.

 
The only thing I can figure out is that they don't seem to snack much (even the children) as we do and they eat a much more leisurely meal, which usually includes wine. However, I rarely saw people 'under the influence'.

Like the movie line, I'll have what they're having.

I'll tell you who I trust regarding matters of diet is the Center for Science in the Public Interest. http://www.cspinet.org/

Skim milk, no soda, whole grains, less fat, green leafy vegetables.

I've been slowly changing my diet, which consisted almost solely of fried chicken fingers from the cheap chinese place on the corner, rainbow sherbet, cheese doodles, and hawaiian punch in the first year or so after leaving college :]

There was an interesting article in the New Scientist magazine about diet a month or so ago but I can't remember much of what it said... maybe I'll look for it @ the library today.

Coincides with my own observation.
Used to be a little overweight. I dropped next to all refined sugar from my diet, and now I hover around the same great weight, no matter what else I eat.
Though, that sugar thing isn't as easy as it sounds. You'll find that nearly every foodstuff that is packaged or prepared has it. Though you can be sure that food that needs sugar to be palatable isn't all that "healthy" anyhow.

Quote from "The Anti-Aging Plan" by Roy Walford (page 65):
"[...]Total average sugar intake has increased twenty-five fold during the past two hundred years. Sugar is the number one preservative used in today's processed foods. This is energy rich but nutrient-poor consumption, exactly the reverse of healthy eating. Today we are eating foods with the highest calories and the lowest nutrients - foods that leave you hungry and, on a per-calorie basis, unnourished. [...]"

Refined sugar is the root of all evil. No really. It is. I am not kidding.

Cheers.

This post has sure spawned a lot of private email and public posts. Here's something I just sent to Dave Winer:

This drives me nuts from an engineering perspective. Weight is about two things: how much of your food you retain and which fat-reserves you burn when. Going through all this stuff to get your body to produce this precursor or enter that state is like keeping an ssh tunnel alive by running a cron job that writes a CRLF to the foremost terminal window every ten minutes. Sure, it works, but it's a dumb hack. Better to read the man pages and figure out how to insert a NOHUP argument.

I know that bodies are more complex and subject to subtler interactions than Turing Machines, but it still bugs me. My motion is under my autonomic control, but my weight-retention is not. Some accident of evolution put the triggers for weight-loss into ring zero, non-user-executable space. I hate the idea that I need to slaughter a chicken every time I want to wheedle *my* body into executing some trivial instruction. I should be a super-user, dammit.

There's no technical reason why your body can't burn fat at whatever rate it chooses to. There's a conditional operator that evaluates your environment to determine whether the circumstances are proper for fat-burning, and I would rather spoof the condition than enter the state that satisfies it. Nanotech, where are you?

paul - good for your friends. i haven't tried the diet myself, because i don't think bacon and eggs taste good without orange juice. a big plate of steak with nothing else doesn't do it for me. i've know literally dozens of people that have tried that diet and hit a wall at around 3 months. it is simply too hard to follow strictly for long periods of time. they had wild cravings and dreamt about food.

i would suspect that any of the people you know on the diet either cheated or took breaks from it in that time. from everything i've read/heard, it's bad for your body to yo-yo diet like that.

How long until the inevitable class-action lawsuit against the FDA, NIH, and other health bureaucrats demanding billions in recompense?

Add a "low-fat" settlement on top of the "tobacco" settlement, and every class action lawyer will have a vacation home.

>that diet is unsustainable for any length of time.

What do you mean by "unsustainable"? I have met a handful of people who have been on Atkins for over three years, have achieved the weight they want, and keep using the diet.

Jim Canuk: That was the joke.

Cory, if you want to loose weight, exercise and get in the Zone. It's not a diet but a sensible philsophy on blanced eating. http://makeashorterlink.com/?D22623531

Edited by author 07-07-2002 02:45 PM
basically, how it works is this. when you eat, your food is transformed into glucose and other nutrients your body needs. insulin is produced based on the amount of glucose that is produced. insulin acts as a key to allow glucose into your cells for energy. excess energy becomes fat.

when a person is an uncontrolled diabetic, they either don't have any insulin (type1) or their body can't use the insulin they have (type2). untreated, this person will lose a lot of weight really really fast because the cells aren't getting the energy they need so they begin to burn fat and then muscle. this causes a state of acidosis which is extrememly unhealthy. it can cause damage to a person's internal organs as well as a slew of other health problems.

the atkins diet tries to create that state of acidosis in a healthy person. by starving the dieter with a lack of carbs (energy), no glucose is produced. not as much insulin is produced either.

that diet is unsustainable for any length of time. i've known people on it that began to obsessively dream about orange juice. what it's doing is manipulating their insulin production, they quit the diet and gain a lot of weight back (one of the causes of type2 diabetes) and end up with a permanent damaging disease.

i have lost 112 lbs. but it has taken 6 years to do it. i think most people want to lose weight quickly and they want to do it all at once. i was concerned with keeping it off. really, the only thing i've found that works is eating less and exercise. i don't even really change what i eat. sometimes i have to judge how hungry i am and think about - do i want to eat this item because it has fewer calories and i can eat more of it or do i want to eat a little of this item because i have a craving?

anyway, i'd like to lose about 20-30 more lbs. because it's healthier and i like pretty clothes, but i have accepted that i'm never going to weigh what i did in high school. realizing that has taken a lot of pressure off as well.

Pudgy middle-aged man with a beard indeed.I f I was around he wouldn t be the only one ,Actually at 5 ft 10 in and 175 lbs my BMI is acceptable medically if not too nice to look at

I'll toss in another thumbs up for body for life as it isn't a diet, but a complete fitness regimen. I dropped over 45 lbs last year and have kept it off without any real effort. Sensible diet (no saturated fats, or refined carbs and sugars) and daily exercise (aerobic and weightlifting), there really isn't any trick to it, other than sticking with it. A partner is a BIG, BIG help for motivation.

The atkins diet works by the way because carbohydrate starvation has an immediate effect of forcing water from tissues. You get a quick weight and size loss and a psychological boost. The downside is that the hard work of changing your body take a lot more time.

You've seen how fa... er, how plump I am, Cory. I ran 4 miles a day for several years, and I was pretty lean before I got so busy I stopped exercising with any regularity... the point being that exercise is the real key, in my opinion. I've started running again, and though my legs sometimes feel like they're being whacked by molten sledgehammers, I feel much better... when I'm not running. No pain, no gain!

Yeah, but there are a lot of people/scientists not happy with the Atkins diets for plenty of other reasons though. I think the Atkins diet is a typical over-reaction, ie, carbs don't seem to be helping, so lets not just cut back on carbs, but cut them out entirely!!! The Zone diet looks a lot more realistic to me given everything I've been reading. I've been losing 1-1.5 pounds a week on the Body For Life diet at a steady rate, and dropped 3 sizes in 10 weeks. The other important thing is that it is your body fat index that is more important to measure, not your weight. But try and find anything other than scales around.

Omega 3 fats are good for you (found in fish, oils, nuts), but there are still bad fats. I've followed natural bodybuilders for the past few years, and if there was one thing I noticed was that they did not eat like everyone else. Lots of protein, less carbs. I hear a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, and I try not to eat more carbs than protein.

Of course I also have to put in exercise time. I lift for 40 minutes 3 days a week, and bike for 20 minutes 2-3 days a week.

I fell for the food pyramid, and the official line. After I graduated and got a deskjob, I cut out meat as much as possible, and went super low fat, cut back calories, to try and lose weight I gained from not playing soccer. I gained over 20 pounds and was still gaining, even after attempts at riding bike etc, when I finally snapped and decided to read and study everything I could get my hands on by people who had practical experience in reshaping their bodies, natural bodybuilders. And they are totally at odds with the food pyramid.

I wish I'd educated myself like this when I was still in school. I wouldn't have had to struggle so much (spending hours a day in the gym, running as much as possible). On the other hand, I'm wearing clothes that haven't fit for 2 years, and I'm about to start fitting into a pair of pants I've kept around for 6 years.

I'm not complaining...

Tobias

The low carbo diet craze sounds great: "Eat more meat! eat more fat! And lose weight!" and it works - you will lose weight.

But you lose weight because you are deliberately malnourishing yourself. Your body needs carbohydrates to work properly. Without carbohydrates your body starts eating its fat reserves, and then, quite soon after, it starts eating itself. If you follow a low carbo diet for too long, you get sick. That can't be a sign of a healthy diet. And as soon as you go back to normal eating habits, all the weight comes back, but you might have done some permanent damage.

To make matters worse, the carbohydrates are typically replaced with protein and fat. This is the key selling point of this diet - it's fun! Vegetables contain lots of things that make you healthy, including cancer prevention. At the same time, meat and animal fat are very significant causes of heart disease and cancer. Excess protein has also been linked to calcium loss, so your bones may be damaged too.

I'd rather be slightly overweight with no cancer and a healthy heart than thinner with bowel cancer, a heart condition and weak bones... Don't do it!

The "I have a friend who got gout" story about the Atkins diet is about as un-scientific as the "every person I know who has stayed on the Atkins diet keeps losing weight" stories.

I did the Atkins diet early this year because my partner was doing it and it's nearly impossible for one person in a household to do it without the others. We ate *lots* of meat and eggs, and cut way back on the vegies. We both lost weight (like my pants got looser, something that hasn't happened in 15 years). We hated the diet, stopped, and got or weight back, but didn't gain more. Oh, well.

The scientific community doesn't want to study the long-term effects of diets. It is too hard to do without a lot of intrusive (read: expensive) data collecting. I'm quite sure that there are long-term negatives to the Atkins and Zone "protein and fat good, carbs bad" diets. But I'm also quite sure that there are long-term negatives to "eat like an American but exercise more" diets as well.

First, you have to measure the long-term positives and negatives, then you have to compare them. The comparison will be a blatanly political and commercial act, one that the US government will blunder.

I'd be reallllly careful about trying the Atkins diet. Probably a safe bet you'd lose weight, but it doesn't seem like a viable life-long plan. A very overweight friend is trying it, and has developed gout. What other surprises is he in for?

You want to lose weight? Eat a balanced diet with limited portions. Don't keep snack food around the house. Skip dinner if you had a huge lunch. And get out and WALK. An easy and pleasant form of exercise.

I dropped about 30 pounds in 1999 by really cutting out all the fatty stuff (cheese, peanut butter, most desserts) and I KEPT it off (with seasonal variations, from 190 lbs. to 205 lbs. or so) since then by just cutting out the most egregious offensive fatty stuff. I eat most any dessert, just not that often. Rarely have meat in the house, unless you count salmon. Only have burgers and such on special occasions, like the 4th of July BBQ I just went to, or workplace functions.

And I walk about 4 miles a day, 5-6 days a week.